THIS WEEKEND
Denzel Washington scored a career-best
opening with the football drama Remember
the Titans which seized first place with
a powerful $20.9M in ticket sales, according to final
studio figures, grossing more than the next four contenders combined. Based
on a true story, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film follows a high school
football coach who in 1973 led a racially integrated squad to the Virginia
state championship game. Buena Vista launched the Walt Disney picture in
1,865 theaters and averaged a spectacular $11,210 per site. Titans
delivered the third best September opening
ever after Rush Hour's
$33M and Double Jeopardy's
$23.2M. For Washington, the launch was an all-time high beating the $18.6M
debut of another Bruckheimer-produced Buena Vista release - 1995's Crimson
Tide.

A number of factors
contributed to the enormous success of Titans
over the weekend. The starpower of Denzel
Washington and the uplifting story drew in a wide audience across many
demographic groups. The PG rating made it accessible to all ages which
was crucial since the majority of national releases during the past two
months have been R-rated. Disney's brand name ensured a quality product
for family audiences and Bruckheimer's track record certainly did not hurt.
Also helping Titans was
the fact that moviegoers have been disappointed by most recent films and
actively looking for a good picture to see. For market share leader Buena
Vista, it was the distributor's first number one opening since June's Gone
in 60 Seconds which over the weekend managed
to become the year's thirteenth film to cross the $100M mark.

Looking forward, early
indicators show a strong season ahead for Remember
the Titans. Buena Vista reported that
males made up 55% of the audience and an incredibly high 97% described
the movie as "excellent" or "very good". According
to CinemaScore, patrons in every demographic group gave Titans
a remarkable A+ grade. Saturday sales
jumped a terrific 40% over Friday and the distributor plans to expand the
release to roughly 2,500 locations next weekend. Considering all these
factors, a prolonged theatrical run seems likely throughout the fall. With
a reported budget of $27M, Remember the
Titans could certainly find its way into
the $100M club.

Despite the impressive
opening of Titans,
the overall box office still trailed the comparable weekend in each of
the last three years. However, next weekend could bring the turning point
that the industry has been looking for. Robert De Niro's comedy Meet
the Parents and Sylvester Stallone's action
pic Get Carter
both hit theaters along with what should be a strong sophomore outing for
Titans
which together will try to generate the first year-to-year increase in
over two months.

Moviegoers continued
to flock to the reissue of The Exorcist
which pulled in $7.2M in its second weekend.
Warner Bros. expanded the run of the horror classic from 664 to 1,150 theaters
and generated a strong $6,266 average. An even wider run is planned for
Friday, October 13th. With added scenes and digitally enhanced sound, The
Exorcist has grossed $17.7M in ten days
of rerelease and has upped its lifetime tally to $183M.

Picking up another
bronze medal was the rock music saga Almost
Famous which added 442 theaters and dipped
20% to $5.6M. The DreamWorks/Sony co-production managed a good $3,407 average
in its third leg and has banked $17.8M to date.

Last weekend's top
film, Urban Legends : Final Cut,
tumbled 48% to fourth place with $4.4M. The Sony slasher pic has grossed
$14.7M to date and seems set to reach the vicinity of $25M. Still playing
in over 2,400 theaters in its sixth weekend, Universal's hit cheerleader
comedy Bring It On
claimed fifth with $3M pushing its rosy cume to $59.7M.

Sliding 38%, The
Watcher starring James Spader and Keanu
Reeves took in $2.3M giving the crime thriller $26M to date. The USA Films
comedy Nurse Betty
collected $2.1M in its fourth weekend and lifted its total to $21M. Eighth
place was claimed by the action-comedy Bait
starring Jamie Foxx which picked up $1.7M for a $13.2M sum.

This summer's most
popular ghost story, What Lies Beneath,
continued to show tremendous legs dipping just 25% to $1.6M in its eleventh
weekend in the top ten. The Harrison Ford-Michelle Pfeiffer thriller has
reached $150.6M to date giving the A-list actor the ninth film of his career
to gross over $150M domestically. Overseas, where Fox is handling the release,
What Lies Beneath
has been a strong performer with solid starts in France, Switzerland, India,
and Mexico, while this weekend the Robert Zemeckis film opened in Germany,
Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand.

Debuting at number ten
was the beauty pageant comedy Beautiful
with $1.4M from 646 theaters and a mild $2,182 average. Directed by Sally
Field, the Destination Films release stars Minnie Driver and should work
its way to a final gross of under $5M.

Dropping out of the
top ten were the astronauts of Space Cowboys
who lassoed $1.4M pushing the cume for
the Warner Bros. hit to $87M. A final tally of $90-95M seems likely.

Premiering in just
13 theaters, the comedy Best in Show
collected a hefty $413,436 for a superb $31,803 average. Warner Bros. plans
to widen the run soon adding more cities in the coming weeks.

Opening in limited
release over the weekend was the boxing drama Girlfight
which punched up a solid $7,068 average with $197,896 in 28 theaters in
the top 24 markets. Starring Michelle Rodriguez, the film picked up two
trophies at Sundance last January and was acquired by Sony's Screen Gems
banner for $3M. Girlfight will
enter the ring in about 200 additional theaters on Friday in the same markets.

The top ten films grossed
$50.2M over the weekend which was down 33% from last year when Double
Jeopardy remained in the top spot with
$17M; and down 37% from 1998 when Antz
debuted at number one with $17.2M.

Compared to projections, Remember
the Titans surged well ahead of my $11M forecast. The
Exorcist and Almost Famous
were both very close to my respective predictions of $7M and $6M. Beautiful
was on target with my projection of under $2M.

Take this week's NEW
Reader Survey on Friday's competing films
Meet the Parents
and Get Carter.
In last week's survey, readers were asked whether Remember
the Titans would open with at least $13M.
Of 2,713 responses, 46% correctly chose Yes while 54% voted No.

Read the Weekly
Rewind column which looks at the top-grossing Denzel Washington films
of the last decade. For a review of Urban
Legends visit The
Chief Report.

Be sure to check back
on Thursday for a complete summary, including projections, for next
weekend when Meet the Parents,
Get Carter,
Digimon,
and Bamboozled
all open.

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : Exhibitor Relations,
EDI. Opinions expressed in this column
are those solely of the author.